Archive

PLACES

“There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.” –Henry David Thoreau

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…” Once more we have braved the 18-wheelers that ruthlessly plow through rain troughs, spraying everywhere. Once more we pack and unpack: MOTEL; pack and unpack: MOTEL; pack and unpack: ARRIVAL. “WE’RE BACK!”

PIC OF COTTAGE 16

Yes, we have arrived. It’s been two years. A friend said the spiders probably have saddles; the webs are taut, but not too many. Dust and some dirt. But not too bad.

We’re back in town: Bethesda, Ohio: Same post office; pizza-parlor-restaurant remains. However, some town expansion: new fuel pumps, re-conditioned gas station; new clock and clock tower, and newly established military memorial. Some streets recently paved.

More ducks and geese at the lake, noisily sounding out for food from cottage guests. Some dead trees felled by recent storms lay scattered in the park area, awaiting disposal.

Inside, for me, after a week of sorting clothes, and catching up on minor repairs, I’m ready for…nothing. TO VACATE. IT’S VACATION! Is it not? I brought six magazines and three books. Why? And the books unread from previous years (including Doctor Zhivago and Madame Bovary)? I’ve already made a trip to the library with book donations. (I love that place. But with little self-control, I checked out four DVDs and picture-filled books: all about chocolate, and new watches of 2017.)

Barnesville Public Library

So friends ask, “What do you do when you go to Ohio? What do you do all day? Do you ever get bored?” Never bored. And the days go so quickly…

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“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” is a Christmas song recorded in 1943 by Bing Crosby, who scored a top ten hit with the song. Originally written to honor soldiers overseas who longed to be home at Christmastime, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” has since gone on to become a Christmas standard. It has a beautiful message of being at home with family during the most wonderful time of the year.The song has been recorded by Perry Como (1946), Frank Sinatra (1957), Josh Groban (2001), Kelly Clarkson (2011), Pentatonix (2016), and by many other artists.

* * *

“Home Is Where the Heart Is.”

“A House Is Not a Home.”

“Home, Home on the Range”

“A Man’s Home Is His Castle.”

“Home Is Where Your Story Begins.”

“There’s No Place Like Home.”

You Can’t Go Home Again

“Where is your home?” More than once, I have had to list “former addresses.” Most of the time for a job application: “for the past ten years.” Or once when I applied to the Governor a few years ago for a position on a local board: “all previous addresses.” “Where do you live?” Most of us have had to do this applying for credit, for some license, or for a gun purchase. Certainly, those of us who have gone past second grade are so familiar with “Name-Address-Phone Number.” And we learn quickly, so we’re not lost, or for identification purposes: “Do you know your address?” Sometimes a post office box–P.O. Box 357–or rural route, R.R. #6, is the only way correspondence can be addressed to a person. Even some addresses are the name of the place where a person lives:

Biltmore Mansion at Christmas Asheville, North Carolina

Recently, my wife and I had an interesting breakfast conversation that began with our considering “downsizing” again, disposing of more of our “stuff.” We laughed that our present home was 860 sq. ft. downsized from our 1800 sq. ft. home we left six years ago. Our talking led to a short list of some homes we’ve had in our married life: size and characteristics. For the next few days, we thought up some questions about our residences. By later in the week, we had compiled a list of something about each. We realized each possessed a unique quality. A house has its physical dimensions, furniture, character and style, and “story” to be told, if but one. We had more than enough for talking about.

So where to begin? How to begin? We found ourselves conversing about kids, and jobs and illnesses, and once or twice humming “Our house is a very, very fine house with two cats in the yard…” (Even though we once had four cats that never went out. So many memories of times.) One question we settled on first, though, was “How did we get there?” Nothing to do with a U-Haul or moving van. Was it climate-related? Job-related? Did it have to do with our health? The size of the family? (Our one-bedroom wedding apartment, then into a new apartment a year later, “with a room for the new baby” in our garden apartment in Palatine, Illinois.)

Or was it a move to some place just because we “liked” something bigger, better, newer? (Our move from a 7th-floor condominium apartment, with its garbage chute and elevators and condo restrictions, but which overlooked the beautiful Caloosahatchee River in Fort Myers, Florida, to a house with a yard and trees and lawn to cut.

The Moorings Point North Fort Myers, Florida

We tired of high-rise condo living after three years.) We concluded our exercise with an “Oh,-the-places-you’ll-go” moment

with an inventory of questions, including a “best overall,” a “worst,” a “best financial decision” to “lousy deal.” We had answers, and a major event for each separate place, to include “Why did we leave?” Then came more inquiring, for example, what changes made a place more comfortable or perfectly matched to our lifestyle (the one house we had built)?

McMahon Avenue Home Construction Port Charlotte, Florida

In our fifty-plus years together, we have undertaken two MAJOR migratory events, moving from Chicago to Minnesota (in 1966, for 14 years), and moving from The Land of 10,000 Lakes to the Sunshine State of Florida (in 1980). In any event, all our house-home-stories begin with our apartment hunting in summer 1963, before our October wedding. And so it goes from there.

A favorite and important story-within-a-story we relate often is about my driving with a teacher-colleague to his job interview in Minnesota. He needed a reliable vehicle: our 1964 VW was chosen for the February weekend trip, the back of the car loaded with bags of sand and salt and shovels. We were prepared for weather events or highway problems. (There were neither.)

While Lennie was being interviewed on that cold Saturday morning, I was passing time in the Dean’s waiting room, paging through magazines. A young man entered, then inquired what I was doing. He heard, then told me to spend some time with him. He was a departmental chairperson. I ended up in conversation, just chatting; he presented a program description–and offered me a job.

My friend and I did pros-and-cons for the 300-mile trip home. I took the job; we moved in July 1966. He declined his offer; he could not afford the move with his family. And that was the beginning of that story.

Some persons never move, never leave. Ever. (Some of my former students still live in their original bedrooms in their first and only house.) Others have made annual moves, for whatever reasons. (“Join the Navy. See the world!” came out of World War II–and stayed as a popular slogan, and reality.)

However, Americans, says the Census Bureau, are staying in the same house longer between moves: from 5 years, on average, in the 1950s and 1960s, to about 8.6 years in 2013. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the average American moves 12 times during his or her lifetime. Since our wedding-apartment in 1963, we have had eighteen (18) addresses and moves. Surely, we deliberated many times over with questions like those asked during our recent activity. For each dwelling, we know why we chose it instead of another.

History of the home (structure moved into town from a farm, original Homestead building site). How we lived in it.

SANBORN FARM HOME SANBORN, MINNESOTA

How we loved it. How we made a family. How the family grew, then decreased (graduations and marriages). How we responded to forces around the home (weather, landscape). How the house-home became part of us.

This analytical time for houses, homes, and addresses has been fulfilling–even despite some hurtful memoriesofatime past or pain that might have arisen. Overall, though, looking back at our downsizing exercise, we find we are now in a good place and time to look back at ourselves and our lives together–and how “nomadic” we thought we were. However, “if we had it to do all over again . . .”

* * *

“We can’t separate who we are from where we are. People are rooted in time and place, so our psychic space is generously seasoned with memories of physical territories. … The geography of our past is part of memory. … Every human emotion is seeded in the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of specific environments.” — Sam Keen, Your Mythic Journey:Finding Meaning in Your Life through Writing and Storytelling (1973, 1989).

* * *

“Country roads, take me home…” (John Denver); and then “I’ll be home for Christmas.”

Like this:

“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” by Wallace Stevens: “The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.”

“Why the emperor of ice cream? It’s an odd combination: an absolute, imperial power and a benign, sweet treat. Ice cream is a sensuous delight, eagerly anticipated and gleefully consumed. If you wait too long to eat it, it’ll melt. So much for the ice cream–now what about the emperor?

“Ice cream is like life: sweet, or at least hungrily indulged in, while it lasts. It’s also like the dead: cold and destined to be consumed or to dissipate away. Perhaps, then, the line that closes each stanza is a wake-up call to readers. If the “only emperor” or dominant principle of the world is the one we’re reminded of when we see ice cream melting–(or, in a different way, when we attend a funeral [shown in the poem])–we’d be well advised to heed it and make each moment count.” –Austin Allen, Poetry [magazine] Foundation

…

Once upon a time: Rainbow cones on the South Side: 93rd and Western in Chicago.

There see the giant cone, with five or six colors in slices–not scoops–of ice cream piled on top of one another.

We screamed with excitement for ice cream as our family made its special way farther south of our Marshfield home. It was a drive from Marquette Boulevard. No quick 45-mph trip like today. Probably in the green ’52 Chevy, 25-30 mph, with plenty of stoplights interrupting the special occasion.

Now when it comes to memories in time about flavors, I don’t recall any special Rainbow offerings, but the colors were vibrant. This is embedded in me. And in days before Rainbow–and after–ice cream has been a special weakness of mine. Not as an addiction, like anything-chocolate, but as that special “Good Nutrition My Plate” (nestled within the perfect food container that not only holds but is eaten) with its various food groups which include NUTS (coco-nut and chocolate peanut butter, pistachio and black walnut); FRUITS (like White House Cherry and rum raisin); DAIRY (lemon gelato and butter pecan); PROTEIN (egg nog and phish food, and chunky monkey and chocolate Moose-tracks); VEGETABLES (carrot-cake and chocolate malted and mint chocolate chip); GRAINS (chocolate cookie dough, and Grape-nuts).

However, Rainbow was but one special source of providing me with melting gustatory delights. No doubt about it, Good Humor was like no other.

The bells of the truck signaled the Coming of the Man in White. He enticed us kids to come outside our homes or from our apartments, or made us stop dead in our playing-tracks. If we had the twenty or twenty-five cents, our saved nickels and dimes, we made our purchases.

And? “Coconut for me, please.” The delicious-tasting ice cream bar on a stick, covered completely with a thin coat of white-something loaded with coconuts pieces. Heaven as I ate it. Heavenly. If my favorite was not available, I had to settle for something like chocolate cake or perhaps succumb to savoring an orange creamsickle:

Good Humor exists today, in supermarkets, in 7-11, in other places, and even with a few trucks in certain neighborhood locations. “But it’s not the same.” Yet I would never turn down a chocolate eclair, a toasted almond, or even a strawberry shortcake bar.

…

Howard Johnson’s at some time was a place I remember first seeing coconut milk on the menu. I thought that it would provide me with a special ice cream treat: a coconut milk milkshake. O YES! YES! YES! And then, later, I asked, “A coconut malted milkshake, please.” The nectar of the gods for sure!

…

Gus Pappas died in 1987. He was 83–and that was a long-ago moment. In 1953, “Mr. Pappas” (“Gus”) bought a corner confectionery in the Byrne Building, at Garfield (55th) and Halsted: Pappas Sweet Shop. We just knew it as the ice cream shop. It was a hangout for me and my friend Bill Manion, or with Joe Balint. My sister and her friends found time to have their ice cream and their teen-age talk-sessions there.

BYRNE BUILDING WITH PAPPAS CORNER

No matter how warm outside, I remember the store was always cool inside, with its white tile floors and marble counter-tops. Cool was needed to keep the dipped, rolled, and wrapped delicacies fresh and tasty (Oh, those chocolate-covered cherries!): Who needed Fannie May candies when we had Pappas on the corner?

Gus had a son, James (“Jimmy” to us), who worked in the store. In my time, Jimmy began singing with the Chicago Metropolitan Opera. Though his first role was in the chorus (My mother and I saw him in La Boheme.), he was a star to me. He brought music and fun-with-music into my life, and an appreciation of opera that I do cherish. And there is nothing today that compares to my savoring a Green River Malted Milkshake, with homemade ice cream, that Jimmy Pappas made for me. Yum!

Like this:

“I know my father and my mother, but beyond that I cannot go. My ancestry is blurred.” –V. S. Naipaul

* * *

Once upon a time, from my interviewing my mother, and thus it is written (here), I learned that the beautiful young maiden (of course!) …

KATRINA VON KOENIG, Great Grandma Katrina, a worker in the Barony of Luxembourg (it’s sounding so romantic and mysterious) met

FRANK ČAPEK [b. 1834], a laborer who was (maybe) in the Prussian Army (that would be romantic, like in Elvira Madigan), later turned anarchist, and (perhaps) a bomb manufacturer, in Chicago, for the eight Accused Conspirator Workingmen in the Haymarket Affair (Riot), May 4, 1886.

Drawing from Harper’s Magazine and Wikipedia

I heard about this man when I was a child. I grew up believing I was related to a famous anarchist, because Grandma Schuma said so, and because my mom told me so.

I couldn’t wait to see my Great Grandpa Čapek’s picture in the newspapers.

I spent hours at the beautiful Chicago Public Library on Michigan Boulevard, using the actual newspapers and microfilms of the events of May 4, 1886. (At one time later, my Uncle Elmer told me he studied, too, about his grandfather, and claimed he recognized pictures. He lived with Great Grandpa at 5431 South Seeley Avenue [I remember that house across Garfield Boulevard] until the Prussian soldier died.) Great Grandpa Čapek was a talented watchmaker. He died in 1930.

* * *

Frank and Katrina, whom I did not ever know, had eight children, with beautiful ethnic Bohemian names: Emilie [b. 1886], Mike, John, Frank, Joe [b. 1884], Theresa, Katherine, and Mary. I could never understand why my Bohemian relatives chose these names. But when I thought about emperors and empresses, presidents and monarchs, like Franz Josef and Maria Theresa, or King John, maybe the “common” names were more special emulations than Leopold or Vlad the Destroyer. (Not many songs about Leopold, but Emily? Maria? and Joe? or Meet John Doe?–or A Guy Named Joe–or, even better, “What a good Joe he is!,” the compliment.)

Bohemian immigrants on Ellis Island

There they were, these Bohemian kids (not CZECHS!, not Slovaks, not Slovenes, but Bohacs, or Bohunks–Hunkies or Honkies!). Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918. Bohemia was a kingdom, from “way back when,” like before A.D. 600–those days of Beowulf….

Bohemia in 1882

I learned–and was reminded often–that I was a Bohemian, because “Mom said so.” There I was, growing up in the ethnic South Side of Chicago: Damen and Seeley and Garfield Boulevard (55th Street), and Back of the Yards. Some neighbors were postal workers; others, electricians, tradesmen, homemakers. Family people. Neighborhood people. [Emilie worked in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. She was a meat packer for Libby Foods.]

JOE ČAPEK married ANNA JARYKOVIC.

JOE AND ANNA WEDDING PICTURE

Anna–of course, it had to be “AH-NAH”–died in 1924. In 1918 she had contracted the flu–the world influenza pandemic that occurred near the end of World War I. (More died from the disease than died in the war. I learned that in school.) She then contracted and succumbed to TB. Growing up, I remember many trips to the North Side, to Bohemian National Cemetery, and the graves and headstones.

Bohemian National Cemetery Entrance

And Mayor Anton Cermak’s mausoleum

Cermak Tomb

–and the nearby restaurant that had the best roasted duck, with mashed potatoes and gravy. On the way, we sometimes passed the TB Sanitarium….

Photo by Jennifer A. Stix 1974

Joe and Anna begot: Herbert (Uncle Herbie, who went with Aunt Flo); Joe (Uncle Joe, who went with Aunt Aggie); Elmer (Uncle Elmer, who went with Aunt Gladys) —I knew them all; and LILLIAN CATHERINE [b. November 16, 1918] (my mom).

LILLIAN C. CAPEK

Mother Katrina, while helping Anna with the children, died of a heart attack: November 1918….

In June 1910, having fallen (madly?) in love, Emilie Čapek (Joe’s sister), while working at Libby Foods, married her handsome supervisor, Edward Albert Šuma [Schuma] [b. 1884]. I have the wedding pictures. My, what a handsome couple they were!

Edward Suma-Schuma and Emilie Capek (seated)

* * *

My Grandpa Schuma was hospitalized, was dying. In Evangelical Lutheran Hospital cafeteria, in 1956, on the South Side of Chicago, I came to know who really begot whom. I heard a beautiful story from my mother, a story of family and love. I heard of the love of a mother for a daughter, and a grandmother’s love. Then illness and death. How could all these children have comprehended it all?

Family togetherness, and the love of a generous aunt and uncle (Emilie and Ed), “begot” Lillian as “parents” and for me were my Grandma and Grandpa Schuma. They took the little girl. “Uncle Joe” kept the boys. I never knew that Joseph Capek was my real grandfather–until 1956. I knew my “grandparents” helped raise me when my father (Francis Cummings) was overseas with the Army. Their house was the first I can recall, at 5644 South Seeley Avenue.

5644 South Seeley Chicago (current)

I grew up there with them: with their daughter, my “Aunt” Emily, and with my sister and with my (2nd) cousin Marilyn (who was begot by “Uncle” Bill Knoch).

So I learned the family “secret.” Yet it was never meant to hide or deceive. Life went on. I learned the facts, the “truth.” My mother said it was so.

Nothing changed after that. Except for my awareness. After Grandma Schuma died, I was present for the reading of her will, in 1958. Then the lawyer stated the “where-from?” that began in 1924: “My niece Lillian,…” when they took in that little girl. Nothing really changed for me.

How does one ever begin to tell a story of ancestry? The more I work with the lives and the connections, however, the more I realize the story was really the beginning of how my sister, my cousin, and I–three little kids–became part of the family story. I never looked at it this way before. Those earliest of pictures I have of me alone show a cute happy baby in my mother’s arms.

Jimmy Loved

Later pictures begin to show three little children, each a year apart, with smiling faces.

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“The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film’s characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the story line, often as elaborate production numbers. Typically, film musicals use lavish background scenery and locations. In such films, performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if there is a live audience watching.” [Wikipedia]

I was raised with the movies, black and white and then color. I still spend much time with movies, reading about film and films, though as I have gotten older, I hardly ever go to an actual movie theater, relying on other resources for my viewing pleasure.

An avid moviegoer since I can remember, I vividly recall attending my first CinemaScope 55 film Carousel.

Sometime in 1956, I had a Sunday-afternoon-experience with my mother, which included an L ride in Chicago, and the movie Carousel at the Chicago Theater:

That was the “real” beginning. Since then, I have been mildly addicted and affected by the grand opening spectacle of this color film: 20TH CENTURY FOX, blazing out to me, with full orchestration.

(To this day, I get thrills when a film opens with this icon. Memories.) Mesmerized, to say the least: In CinemaScope, the story, the music, and the production numbers were alive for me on that huge big screen. I was awestruck, not being familiar with this beautiful theater and with such a spectacle.

I laughed and cried and moved with the music; I was saddened by the story. But a profound moment came for me at the end, when I, a mere fifteen years old, was told “You’ll never walk alone.” To this day–and most recently–I watch the movie, still fresh, sad, enlightening, with its tear-making choral finale. A classic, that has certainly withstood the test of time.

After seeing the movie, I could hum many of the songs; I knew then I had to have the music for my music library. My mother bought for me the small boxed-set in 45 rpm, for use in my portable carry-along phonograph. Later I purchased a 33 1/3 LP edition [and now have the CD and DVD].

I love movies. To that memory-of-a-time in 1956, I attribute my love and appreciation of so many kinds of film. Ultimately, I have come to possess my list of favorites–which changes as time passes and new films and movies are produced. However, one thing for sure, Carousel will always remain at the top of that list.

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“Are we there yet? “Do we hafta go home?” “Can’t we stay another few days?”

* * *

Summer is over. School is in session. No more whining about getting there or coming back. It’s another ended-vacation, no matter where or when, no matter how long or how short.

FIN. THE END. FINIS.

And next year? “We have time to talk about that. Do your homework now.”

The essay “What I Did Last Summer” has already been turned in, been graded, and returned. “Excellent!” “Nice Story.” “Sounds Like Fun.” “Oh, I Hate Spiders, Too!” “I’ve Never Been There. Glad It Was Enjoyable.” A++

And so it goes–or went.

I have never been in the military, never have been deployed, never have been separated for months and months at a time in a foreign country.

Oh, I have been on some very short vacations as a child–weekends in South Bend or in Dowagiac, Michigan. Longer adult vacations in England, Turkey, France, Greece. And July summers at school in Cambridge, England.

Memorable vacations with friends, family, scouts, students.

But always–always–I had to come “home,” wherever that was at the time.

This past summer I returned to Florida (with my wife, and a cat) from our 11th summertime in Ohio.

Ohio is not a foreign country. But what a difference from our life in Florida!

Then we do our “summer things,” with friends, family, and other park-vacation dwellers.

We have arrived: Cottage #16

We are now Deployed in Ohio. We are IN-COUNTRY: “being or taking place in a country that is the focus of activity (such as military operations or scientific research) by the government or citizens of another country.” Sometimes we feel we have time-travelled, back to the 1880s:

MORRISTOWN, OHIO

Now there exists time to do “stuff.” To spend time in activities. To have time for reading and quiet time. (“NO TELEVISION! We are on vacation!”) To watch the lake–for hours. To feed the ducks. To walk to the post office. To garden Ohio flowers. To enjoy the quiet in the evening (though silence is sometimes shattered by an occasional Air National Guard C-130 “practicing” over the village of 800 persons, and 60 cottages). But normally, the crickets and the frogs and the owls and the geese provide their evening and night symphonic repertoires.

I have crossed over (the Ohio River). I live a different life. Some years back, I read In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason (1985). This past summer, perhaps somewhat nostalgic and “moody,” I kept remembering the book, and the film with Bruce Willis.

Awareness of my past time reading the novel and viewing the movie was significant. There was some kind of heightened response this past summer to my being “in the world but not of the world.” Perhaps because we were able to have more time there, not just a “quick weekend?” Perhaps. Time there is filled with memories of others who tell stories of the “before” of the Park. And ghosts? Certainly they reside in the walls and around the trees.

MORRISTOWN, OHIO, CEMETERY

Time does not ever stand still: the same 24 hours a day. But still melds into quick time and the days go faster and faster. The end gets closer; we count the “sleeps” until packing the car, closing down the blinds, taking down the hummingbird feeders.

It is time to go. Back to The World.

The drive leaving is quiet. Not much talking. The first hour in the car winds down, and the Ohio River Crossing nears.

“Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go….” Not quite. We leave Ohio. In the rear-view mirror In Country slowly disappears as the car climbs up the hills of the river’s valley. We have crossed over.

The trek home really begins here, from this point. It will be burgers and stops and motel beds for the thousand miles remaining. There will be fog and rain and heat and cool air conditioning in the car. And spilled snacks, and lane changes–and maybe an occasional highway patrol car watching our movements.

Then The World Approach can be seen. We cross over, another river divide.

WELCOME BACK…WELCOME!

“It won’t be long now.”

“WEEEEERRRRREEEE BAAAACK!”

We have returned, been returned safely, to Florida. All went well. No major problems, no delays.

Soon we are greeted; the vacation ending is looming larger:

GREETINGS ON I-275 FROM TAMPA

The forgetting begins. We’re home. We cannot forget there, but now we have to remember: what drawer holds the forks; what cabinet houses the packs of Kool-Aid; where the peanut butter jar is; and, certainly, where we are to put the dirty laundry from the trip home.

We are home. It’s really different here.

MISSION OAKS: SEMINOLE, FLORIDA

However, we have our memories of a time to nurture us, until next time.

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Corned Beef? “In the United States and Canada, consumption of corned beef is often associated with Saint Patrick’s Day. Corned beef is not considered an Irish national dish; the connection with Saint Patrick’s Day specifically originates as part of Irish-American culture, and is often part of their celebrations in North America.

“Corned beef was used as a substitute for bacon by Irish-American immigrants in the late 19th century. Corned beef and cabbage is the Irish-American variant of the Irish dish of bacon and cabbage. A similar dish is the New England boiled dinner, consisting of corned beef, cabbage, and root vegetables such as carrots, turnips, and potatoes, which is popular in New England and parts of Atlantic Canada.” [Wikipedia]

Yummy Corned Beef and Cabbage Dinner

Since I could ever remember, we had corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day. The Irish Catholic Feast Day of St. Patrick was almost a Holy Day of Obligation: Attend church under pain of mortal sin. Well, it wasn’t really such a day; but it was a day off from school, it meant a Chicago parade, and it meant the Italians in my neighborhood had to wait two more days to get even with us by brandishing St. Joseph’s Day–and by having local processions and festivities.

[Saint Joseph’s Day, March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph is in Western Christianity the principal feast day of Saint Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker on 1 May was created in order to coincide with the celebration of International Labor Day (May Day) in many countries.]

Saint Joseph in Glass

Saint Alphonsus Church

Wexford, PA

He was the stepfather to Jesus; St. Patrick only drove out snakes from Ireland….

However, more people in America ate turkey at Thanksgiving time than they ate ham. And more people in American ate corned beef at St. Patrick’s Day-time than they ate Italian sausage and peppers (though I cannot “prove” this allegation by me)!

Well, corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots had been the steady diet of my O’Neil family since I became part of the O’Neil/O’Neill Clan. So my wife and I have continued to carry on our clannish traditions with our own family on that Special Day of 17 March.

Luck of the Irish Shamrock

Note: In October 1884, a convention held by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions unanimously set May 1, 1886, as the date by which the eight-hour workday would become standard. As the chosen date approached, U.S. labor unions prepared for a general strike in support of the eight-hour day. On Saturday, May 1, thousands of workers went on strike and rallies were held throughout the United States, with the cry, “Eight-hour day with no cut in pay.” In Chicago, the movement’s center, an estimated 30,000-to-40,000 workers had gone on strike. What then occurred is the Chicago Haymarket Affair. “No single event has influenced the history of labor in Illinois, the United States, and even the world, more than the Haymarket Affair,” with its rally and riot and trial and executions. “What began as a rally on May 4, 1886, the consequences are still being felt today. Very few American history textbooks present the event accurately or point out its significance,” according to labor studies professor William J. Adelman. [Wikipedia]

So, the Haymarket Affair is generally considered significant as the origin of international May Day observances for workers, Catholics and Communists alike.

Thus ends the history lesson relating Saint Patrick, Saint Joseph, The Haymarket Riot, May Day celebrations, the eight-hour work day, and corned beef and cabbage. Now about those Reuben sandwiches….